Greatly Loved Books
The other night I passed an hour or so watching the extras on the Master and Commander DVD. One of these extras features Peter Weir discussing the process of adapting O'Brian's novel(s) to the screen, during the course of which he says something to the effect of 'it's very hard to make a great movie from a great book.' I would quibble with this statement only slightly, amending it to 'it's very hard to make a great movie from a greatly loved book.' War and Peace is undoubtedly a 'great' book, but greatly loved? In contrast, arguments will rage over whether The Lord of the Rings is a 'great' book, but is undeniably greatly loved.
It seems to me that more often than not, greatly loved books are marked by an emphasis on the characters. Take O'Brian's novels for example - of the twenty-odd volumes I would be hard-pressed to remember more than a handful of plots, yet the characters of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Mathurin remain as clear and vivid in my mind's eye as the hour I first encountered them. Aside from the struggle at Reichenbach Falls most of the conundrums faced by Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes have vanished from memory, but I would have no trouble recognizing Holmes and Watson were I to run into them on the street. Even Tolkien's characters, often criticized as wooden, have a wonderfully long shelf life. Who can forget Gandalf, by turns ruthless and compassionate, merry and outright cranky, or the bluff, hearty yet doomed Boromir?
It is the seeming reality of these characters, and the attachment readers form to them, that makes translating a greatly loved book to screen such a challenging endeavor. Only the most rigid of purists would deny the need to make some changes to the story of The Lord of the Rings in order to bring it to the cinema. But to make gross alterations to the natures of the various characters - well then the screams would have been long and loud. The ultimate success of that film lies at bottom in Jackson's remaining true to the characters.* Changes are made to the course of events, but Gandalf never does anything, well, un-Gandalf-like. Sam Gamgee is not depicted as wisecracking hipster in order to make the character 'relevant.' Weir too showed the same care in his rendition of Aubrey and Mathurin. Russell Crowe may be much thinner than O'Brian's Aubrey, but he does not do or so anything that a long-time reader of the works can't imagine him doing or saying. Crowe-as-Aubrey does not make politically correct speeches about the unfortunate necessity of war. Instead he strides across the screen as O'Brian imagined him: a man not only devoted to carrying out his duty to King and Country, but a man completely and utterly at home in making war on the French over the seas.
* My disappointment with The Return of the King is rooted in the fact that Jackson seemed to forget this emphasis on remaining true to the characters. But that's a post for another day - I'm the extending version of the film makes up for some of those sins.
It seems to me that more often than not, greatly loved books are marked by an emphasis on the characters. Take O'Brian's novels for example - of the twenty-odd volumes I would be hard-pressed to remember more than a handful of plots, yet the characters of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Mathurin remain as clear and vivid in my mind's eye as the hour I first encountered them. Aside from the struggle at Reichenbach Falls most of the conundrums faced by Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes have vanished from memory, but I would have no trouble recognizing Holmes and Watson were I to run into them on the street. Even Tolkien's characters, often criticized as wooden, have a wonderfully long shelf life. Who can forget Gandalf, by turns ruthless and compassionate, merry and outright cranky, or the bluff, hearty yet doomed Boromir?
It is the seeming reality of these characters, and the attachment readers form to them, that makes translating a greatly loved book to screen such a challenging endeavor. Only the most rigid of purists would deny the need to make some changes to the story of The Lord of the Rings in order to bring it to the cinema. But to make gross alterations to the natures of the various characters - well then the screams would have been long and loud. The ultimate success of that film lies at bottom in Jackson's remaining true to the characters.* Changes are made to the course of events, but Gandalf never does anything, well, un-Gandalf-like. Sam Gamgee is not depicted as wisecracking hipster in order to make the character 'relevant.' Weir too showed the same care in his rendition of Aubrey and Mathurin. Russell Crowe may be much thinner than O'Brian's Aubrey, but he does not do or so anything that a long-time reader of the works can't imagine him doing or saying. Crowe-as-Aubrey does not make politically correct speeches about the unfortunate necessity of war. Instead he strides across the screen as O'Brian imagined him: a man not only devoted to carrying out his duty to King and Country, but a man completely and utterly at home in making war on the French over the seas.
* My disappointment with The Return of the King is rooted in the fact that Jackson seemed to forget this emphasis on remaining true to the characters. But that's a post for another day - I'm the extending version of the film makes up for some of those sins.
<< Home